


Copper and Salt

by Imherefinally



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Blood, Cheating, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2020-01-13 15:31:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18471814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imherefinally/pseuds/Imherefinally
Summary: Kanaya and Vriska always had a kind of joke between them. This time the punchline never comes.





	Copper and Salt

It started as a joke, it had to be. There’s no way anyone would really like her, especially Kanaya. She wasn’t worth the trouble. Terezi must have put her up to it. She would enjoy it while it lasted, but she was just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Kanaya was waiting too.

Vriska was just teasing her, incessantly. She knew, she had to know that she is- was infatuated with her years ago, and she wouldn’t risk her relationship with Terezi. Would she?

The flirting was black, Terezi would understand, Rose wouldn’t. At least Dave didn’t get it, and they were pretty much siblings. They couldn’t tell anyone, because if one did, the other would jump out and reveal the joke. They would laugh, but neither of them wanted it to end, so it didn’t. 

It typically went like this. Dinner, or breakfast, someone would make a quip about time not passing right, usually Dave. Terezi would joke with him and Karkat and Rose would sit ready to intervene, one hand in Kanaya’s. As soon as she did Vriska would say something from across the table about getting a haircut, Kanaya would act interested, waiting for the punchline. 

“No, a haircut for you, Kan.”  
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”  
“Are you really so deep in the vampire schtick that even your hair has to match?”  
“At least I have a theme, lately your style is very…”  
“What, fussy-fangs?”  
“Like you picked it up from your floor and did a sniff test.”  
“That’s Terezi.”

“HEY”

Then Terezi and Vriska would engage. Rose would try to mediate, and Kanaya would be out in the cold again. She could jump in, but she found it’s best to fall back and wait, and look at Vriska.

Roughhousing made all her wild attributes pop. Her normally tangled hair fluffed out, her teeth gleamed when she laughed, and when she flexed… well, she went to such great lengths to make sure Kan could see. 

She tried to scold down the blush that was rising in her cheeks. This was a joke. She didn’t mean it, couldn’t. 

Rose knocked over the salt. She took out her copper piercings and tossed them on the table before jumping into the fray. The copper sparkled like the sun, and the salt the stars. Kanaya pushed back tears and pretended to laugh about all the mess.

Terezi was on a salt kick. She salted everything, including hot cocoa. Dave introduced the cocoa and somehow Terezi grew up without any salt so she was getting her fix. They had to stage an intervention when she started walking into rooms with a bottle full of salt. She even salted her own mouth once before kissing Vriska. She claimed she enjoyed it. Kan didn’t get it.

Rose was newly fixated with copper, and so was Kanaya. The color suited her, and they would talk for hours about its antibacterial properties. Rose would spend hours alchemizing jewelry and playing with copper sheets. She said that she never got to express her inner craftsman at home. All this about aesthetics; Vriska didn’t get it.

Kanaya pulled her aside after dinner / breakfast, her eyes darting left and right. She led her past bedrooms and hallways, no place far enough away for their secret, and settled on a closet in the heart of the meteor. 

“Something has to change,” Kanaya didn’t like the way her voice wavered, “this is real, right?”  
“Real, I mean-“  
“You have to tell me that this isn’t all in my head, that I’m not imagining things because it can’t be, this isn’t-“  
“Breathe,” Vriska put her hands on Kan’s shoulders, “breathe.”

They were so close, and the past few months flashed through Kan’s head. Brawls that lasted way too long, inching toward each other at the table, it couldn’t be just a joke, this girl had played with her feelings too many times and if this was one of those times she would rather face the punchline than take one more minute of this. Anything but this.

Vriska was usually the one falling apart, and while the role reversal made her smirk it mostly made her worried. They’d been playing relationship ouija ever since… well ever since they’d met in person for the first time. She was so different in the real world, outside of that little chat box that seemed to rule their lives. Kanaya had needs, and Vriska thought she could fill them in a very very platonic way, but she moved here and she moved there and she didn’t know when they crossed the line but Vriska struggled very hard to shove the very very un-platonic feelings away, but they kept coming back. 

Kanaya abhorred what she did, but she was trying to change, and she wanted to help with that. She tried to get her to open up but there was always a barb or a detour to surprise her. She had finally pinned her down in the closet. It felt real, very very real, and being so close was torture and she would never get another chance,

and she would never get another chance, and she went for it

and she went for it. 

The kiss was long and deep, violent and passionate. Years of feeling condensed into one long moment. They only stopped when they tasted copper and salt. Vriska’s lip was cut and tears streamed out of her eyes. 

“Stop, stop! this will hurt them so bad.” She didn’t recognize the words coming out of her mouth. 

“I don’t care.”

She didn’t believe Kanaya either.

She leaned in again, Vriska had to shove her away. Blood was all over her face. 

“You don’t care?”  
“I, I do, but I didn’t feel it- what did you do to me?!”  
“Me?!”  
“Yes, you’re influencing me… some how, just get to the punchline Vriska just say I’m the punchline!”  
“You thought I was- I thought you-“  
“What did we do?!”

Light flooded the closet, neutralizing the soft glow of Kanaya’s skin. She looked away, Vriska didn’t. 

“Rose… I can-“

Her expression was obscured by the backlight, but her emotions were clear when the door slammed so hard it rattled the hinges. 

Back against the door, Rose struggled to take deep breath. With all her foresight she had neglected to account for this outcome, how? She thought she could see Kanaya so clearly, Vriska not so much. What would Terezi-

“TEREZI”

She dragged a couch in front of the door before running off to collect the other cheat-ee.

Vriska’s eyes adjusted back to the dark and cold. She was used to being cold, but not when just a second ago she was flush with someone so surprisingly warm. Kanaya wouldn’t look at her. She wanted to know what she was thinking so badly, but she was uncertain what she would find, so she went about it in the old fashioned way.

“Would you leave me for Rose?”  
“In a heartbeat.”  
“Wow Myryam… that’s cruel. Am I rubbing off on you?”

Kanaya wiped the blood off her lip and tasted it.

“You could say so. What about Terezi?”  
“I’ve been talking to her about… whatever we are. I need her, ugh, but I think I need you just as much.”  
“I have trouble believing that.”  
“At least as friends, I mean, aggressive acquaintances, if you really want to go back to that. In a heartbeat.”  
“I didn’t mean-” Kanaya sighed “I didn’t mean that I don’t care about you. I meant that you’re… like the stars. Rose is like the sun. Without you I might lose direction, but without Rose…”

A smile pulled at Vriska’s mouth. The way it was, it wasn’t perfect, but it was good. Now it might not be, but she was used to messing everything up. Her very existence seemed to draw in trouble. She never seemed to know when to fight it or accept it. She looked at her hands, the floor, anywhere than the little bit of normal she sacrificed to have just one kiss, just one.

“I get it. I’ll step back.”

She jumped a little when Kanaya squeezed her hand.

Rose found Terezi surrounded by piles and piles of cans, hammering out can town’s constitution with the Mayor. 

“Terezi there is a situation in the closet.”  
“What?”  
“Come see for yourself.”  
“I can’t see anything.”  
“Terezi!”

They both make their way to the closet, Terezi chuckling the entire way. She pushes the couch aside with one hand, and winks with both eyes. Without opening the door she yells,

“WHAT’S GOING ON IN THERE, ARE YOU TWO MAKING OUT?”  
“Were.” Kanaya’s voice is hoarse.  
“Oh. Hmm…”

Terezi paced back and forth, tapping rhythmically with her cane. She slammed the door back into place when it creaked open. Still tapping her cane, she parsed the situation. 

It’s not like she didn’t see this coming. She knew Vriska better than she knew herself, and on top of that she was a terrible liar. Every time she caught the glances between the two the pangs of jealousy only fueled her teasings, but now it was real. 

A relatable struggle, but Terezi was better at hiding her true feelings. 

Rose only interrupted when the tapping became pounding. Putting one hand on the cane and the other over the hand tapping it, she looked into red eyes and failed to notice the blush spreading over Terezi’s face.

“What do we do?”  
“I’m not sure. I mean Vriska’s kind of stupid but I’m not leaving her.”

A muffled HEY made Rose turn.

“You’re not?”  
“I don’t see a reason to.”  
“But you never see.”

She shrieked with laughter, and Rose couldn’t help but smile. All she was looking for was some sign that everything was going to be ok, and Terezi’s blood curdling laughter was the same as it ever was.

“I mean, I’m going to punish her somehow, but leaving her would be cruel. What about you and Kanaya?”  
“I don’t know,” Rose slumped against the wall “On Earth I would have, but now I’m a god of light and she’s an alien vampire so does anything matter anymore?”  
“I guess not. She’s super hot by the way.”  
“Why would you say that?”  
“Isn’t this what this is about? Keeping secrets?”  
“I suppose so.”  
“We should talk to them-“  
“I’m a moment,” Rose pulled her down so they were both sitting on the ground, “but not yet. I don’t know if I’m ready to see her yet.”

Rose took a moment to breathe. On the other side of the door Kanaya buried her head in her hands and cried. Vriska was her childhood crush, but even then she knew she was a mess. There was something about that wildness that intrigued her. Rose was beautiful, amazing, perfect, and everything she ever thought she wanted. Maybe she was too perfect. She would fuss and fuss but not much could be done without starting a fight or Rose retreating behind another layer of human sarcasm. 

Time spend with her felt subdued, their conversations were sparring matches, and while Vriska was no less of a stressful enigma she needed someone, and she needed to be needed. She needed adventure and someone to take her, and she needed to express the feelings she never let slip so long ago, but she needed Rose’s stability even more.

Vriska tried to comfort her, telling her how much of a catch she was, assuring her that she wasn’t horrible, rubbing her back in long, slow circles while telling her to breathe. The role reversal was jarring.

“Sometimes I feel Rose slipping away,” Kanaya said on a long exhale, “on Earth women weren’t supposed to love other women.”  
“Yeah I know. Dave talks about it but, Rose never brought it up.”  
“I know it bothers her. Sometimes I felt that she was just looking for an excuse to break it off so she wouldn’t have to confront it. I’m worried she’ll freak out.”  
“Yeah I think trapping us in a closet constitutes as a freak out Myryam-”

A quick jab shut her up. Unfortunately the silence was killing her. The mumbling from outside drove her crazy, and pressing her ear to the door did nothing. 

“Can you… listen in?”  
“I can try.”

Vriska took a steadying breath before reaching out with her mind. Terezi’s mind was familiar and comforting, and she often sought out its presence when they were apart. She would never tell her that though. Settling between her ears she began picking up any stray thoughts. Smell, touch, she was playing with the edge of her cane, no sight but- ah! Sound. 

What she did pick up was muffled by emotional turmoil. Something gross and mushy around Rose, fear, truth, honesty, tuning like a radio she tried to silence it, but it was no use. She decided to just observe. Tempting as it was to meddle. So tempting…

An idea floated past, she could just, nudge it along. Open the door, come on. Come on.

The door creaked open. Terezi came in first. She walked over to Vriska and slapped her.

“I know what you were doing!”  
“You were out there so long I thought I’d die.”  
“Fine. If you want this so badly I guess you’ll have it. Come on in Rose.”

There were flames in her eyes. Flames directed at Vriska. She stormed over and gave her another slap.

“What was that for?!”  
“I don’t know! Everything’s just always your fault somehow, isn’t it!” Rose pinched the bridge of her nose “Anyway, I have something I wanted to say.

On Earth, this wasn’t something I was supposed to do. I tried so hard to suppress it but it always came out. I thought that because Earth was gone, so was that guilt. I was wrong. I’m scared. This is scary. I found some kind of stability and now it might be gone. A part of me wants to throw it away because it’s not what’s supposed to happen, but it has. Kanaya, I struggle but I’ve felt more right than I ever have in my life with you, and if I’m not doing something right I want to know, please.”

“Rose…” Kanaya rushed over to embrace her “nothing, you’re doing nothing wrong. I love you, and just because I love Vriska doesn’t mean I love you any less.”  
“You love her?”  
“LOVE ME?! MYRYAM THAT’S GROSS!”

“But I will stop this if that’s what you want.”

“Wow thanks.”

“I will learn how to tolerate Vriska if it will make you happy.”

“I guess it’s just bag on Vriska day huh.”

“I love you Rose.”  
“I love you too. I have to say I was a little disappointed when I figured out those flelexing sessions weren’t for me.”

“HA! I KNEW it, everybody is in love with me.”  
“Not so fast!”  
all eyes shot to Terezi,  
she took her time with the suspense,  
“Dave isn’t.”  
“Babe I never wanted him to be.”  
Terezi head-butted her girlfriend “I know.”  
“Are you sure you’re alright with this?” She motioned to herself and Kanaya.  
“As long as I get PLENTY of attention and you pay a fine of… one million kisses!”  
“We’d have to be together for a really long time for that dude.”  
“ACCEPTABLE! Well what are you waiting for? Begin your payment.

Oh! And before I forget, Kanaya,”  
“Yes?”  
“Your girlfriend’s hot. Rose? Your girlfriend. Is. Hot.”  
“Did you have to say it in that way?”  
“No, but it bugged you didn’t it?”

Terezi let out another demonic shriek and Vriska chuckled against her cheek.

“She really got you there! Why don’t we come out of the closet?”

Rose laughed so hard that she had to lie down. Maybe this would work out just fine.

**Author's Note:**

> First fic, working on more. Please give kudos if you read.


End file.
